
Metro Theatre’s 62nd season honours spooky season with The Woman in Black, by Stephen Mallatratt and Dame Susan Hill, haunting the stage until November 2nd. The gothic ghost story is directed by and stars, BC Entertainment Hall of Fame inductee, Bernard Cuffling with Daniel Merlo takes you on a chilling supernatural adventure.
Holding the acclaim as the second longest running non-musical in London’s West End, where it ran from 1989 to 2023, This production continues Cuffling’s association with The Woman in Black having staged it at various houses around the region. Despite his character stating that he has ‘no desire to be a great actor’, the veteran actor demonstrates his own versatility and experience flipping between directing and playing aged solicitor Arthur Kipps, as well as various other characters in the play within a play-style production. To help recount the eerie experiences he encountered as a young solicitor at Eel Marsh House, the elder Kipps engages a young actor (Daniel Merlo, making his Vancouver theatre debut), who guides his elder pupil in the art of oratory and takes on the guise of the younger Kripps through the story. By getting it off his chest and telling about it once and for all, Kripps hopes to purge himself of the lingering hauntings but neither he nor his dramatic collaborator could have expected the results.
“The Actor”, as excellently portrayed by Merlo, also bounces between the present day tutor role as he guides Kipps to tell his story, while also portraying the solicitor in flashbacks. When in flashback, Merlot’s wide-eyed enthusiasm and energetic portrayal of the young Kipps, contrasts greatly with Cuffling’s agitated, weary and frail older Kipps. As The Actor in present-day, Merlo takes on the mentor role to entice the story from the hesitant veteran. Innocent to the supernatural, the younger becomes enlighten as he and we, the audience, learn more of what happened to Kipps in Eel Marsh House.
Cuffling’s simple but tight direction, backed up by Brad Trenaman’s eerily effective lighting with set design by Glenn MacDonald, play well into the historic environment of the Metro Theatre, itself becoming part of the story. The Woman in Black offers up some spine-chilling moments and scares that keep audiences at the edge of their seats, unsure of what lay ahead in this spook recollection but comforted in that communal experience of live theatre.
Do you believe in ghosts? Find out, if you dare, as The Woman in Black plays until November 2, 2024 at Metro Theatre, 1370 SW Marine Drive. For more information and tickets online at metrotheatre.com/the-woman-in-black